As Jane points out, the BBC’s Alistair Cooke has finally retired at the age of 264. (Okay, 95.)
I have a soft spot for guys like Cooke, the old model of foreign correspondence — a dapper European soberly chronicling the day’s events without so much as scuffing his shoes. (I wrote a lengthy profile of a somewhat analogous figure, Fernand Auberjonois.) Cooke’s audio “Letter From America” (the last one’s here) was a lovely, calming (if occasionally in need of a good editing) respite from standard radio. I had a few fond midnights in Zambia listening to Cooke on the shortwave.
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04 March | 17:08 | sinclair
I'll miss Cooke's letter from america - I used to tune in to him when I drove up overnight from Bristol to Edinburgh - my companion on the lonely M6.
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Joshua Benton is the director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, among other things. Before that, he was a staff writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News. (More.)
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